00:01:46.780Hamas has said that the U.S. has given assurances that this deal means the genocide in Gaza
00:01:53.300has, quote, ended permanently. It's unclear exactly how the U.S. is going to ensure that
00:02:01.020that is indeed a lasting peace. They have sent 200 troops to be on the ground. But aside from that,
00:02:09.380it's, you know, it could just be more Trump luster. It could be something more significant.
00:02:13.740But a lot of people just speculated the whole motivation for Trump here was that he wanted to
00:02:18.100win the Nobel Peace Prize today, which he didn't. So, you know, maybe he will be in the running
00:02:24.480next year. But just your quick thoughts on, I know, just your quick thoughts on this massive
00:02:31.180development. Yeah, I'm just like hearing some violin music for Donald Trump right now. The
00:02:36.280poor guy, you know, not getting his Nobel Peace Prize. I know. Yeah, I don't know what even to
00:02:42.800say right um i admittedly i've had a busy week so i haven't been able to look over like all the
00:02:48.240details of the deal um what i've had seen obviously has me skeptical right like we know how often
00:02:54.780israel breaches these agreements um and of course uh you know when mark carney was asked about it in
00:03:00.640the house of commons the other day he was like yeah we just need to see if hamas is gonna like
00:03:05.060stay true to this deal it's like yeah i'm more concerned about the other side actually yeah
00:03:10.420you know because they were still slaughtering people up until like you know the the minute it
00:03:15.100took effect and i believe some people said after but i i don't want to say that you know confirm
00:03:19.460that but um yeah definitely at least 29 the day of yeah exactly and so from what i've seen i'm
00:03:28.920even skeptical about the deal itself and like what it's actually going to look like if something like
00:03:33.940this does come into effect, right? Because the Israeli military does not have to immediately
00:03:40.600withdraw from the Gaza Strip, just from a piece of it, and they can still control other aspects of
00:03:46.980it. And it really looks to me, if you look at kind of the map that they've released and, you know,
00:03:52.800the aspects of the plan that they have put together, it really looks like trying to make
00:03:57.980Gaza, a place that is attractive for American, Israeli, and Gulf capital to basically build up,
00:04:05.080right? It seems far less about Gazans and Palestinians and much more about these different
00:04:10.520interests being able to capitalize on basically this tragedy, right? Yeah, so I don't know. I0.76
00:04:17.440hope this means that no more Gazans are going to get slaughtered. I hope this means that, sure,0.98
00:04:22.420you know, Israeli hostages get to go home, but also that all of the Palestinians who are being
00:04:26.720held in Israeli prisons and detention camps get to go home as well, right, which we never hear the
00:04:32.500media and our politicians talk about. So yeah, I guess we'll have to see what happens. I'm still
00:04:37.200very skeptical. But yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty much in the same boat. I mean, the fact that
00:04:42.660Israel has shown zero respect for past ceasefires. And, you know, I'm even concerned about what they
00:04:51.600might do once the hostages are gone not that they showed much respect or deference to the reality
00:04:57.420that there were hostages there um but you know it is it's a nerve-wracking time but uh you know
00:05:06.220it's as close as we've been which you know we have been here before but um hopefully this one
00:05:13.340sticks um yeah we know that like the only thing that holds israel back is the united states and
00:05:19.380And it feels to me like, you know, like Trump used some of the leverage that he has in order to force Netanyahu and to force the Israeli government to sign on to this deal.
00:05:31.380Right. I'm sure it still leans in the favor of Israel.
00:05:34.260I have little doubt about that, but it still seemed pretty clear up until recent days that they did not really want to have to sign on to it and that it was ultimately Trump forcing their hand in order to do that.
00:05:44.400And so, again, if Trump hasn't won the Nobel Peace Prize, is he going to feel less motivated to kind of keep them in line?
00:05:54.600Or is he actually going to try to see this through and essentially tell what is an American client state that, you know, America has the say on this.
00:06:04.340This is what they're doing and Israel needs to back off or else.
00:06:08.420So, you know, we'll see. It depends on the United States a lot, too.
00:06:11.520if you guys hear a little barking in the background sorry my dog's getting a little
00:06:17.020agitated the joy of doing things live but yeah I did want to stick on the topic of Trump just a
00:06:24.520little bit longer because the other sort of big news in Canada this week was that Trump and Carney
00:06:30.300had another White House meeting I guess I'm just kind of wondering what you thought of this latest
00:06:37.520sort of White House humiliation ritual, it feels like at this point, you know, he trots out these
00:06:43.000world leaders and has them kiss the ring, and says all kinds of embarrassing things while they1.00
00:06:48.420continue to kiss his ass. You know, Trump was making jokes about the 51st state again. And1.00
00:06:54.340actually, some Americans were claiming that Carney was kissing Trump's ass. What did you1.00
00:07:01.240think? Did you agree with that take from the Americans and some Canadians? What do you make
00:07:06.740of that meeting um i was rolling my eyes intensely as i was seeing a bunch of canadians
00:07:12.740say that actually all of his sucking up to trump was part of a big plan uh and was not actually
00:07:18.320sucking up but was actually his way of um like needling trump uh by saying that he's so great
00:07:25.900and has been doing so many great things because transformative doesn't have to mean positive it0.98
00:07:30.740can mean negative as well it's like what world are you people living in like he's gone down there
00:07:34.760to kiss the ring to try to suck up to trump because that's what trump expects because they're
00:07:39.240still trying to get a deal um after all of this time and it seems pretty clear um you know that0.72
00:07:44.880that has become very difficult to to get because the united states is focused on other things the
00:07:50.060united states is trying to steal industry from canada um and of course you know the big news
00:07:54.620for me coming out of this meeting was now all of a sudden the keystone xl pipeline might be coming
00:07:59.660back like what the hell is up with this you know we're we're talking about ramming a pipeline
00:08:04.320through to the west coast to serve alberta and danielle smith and now there's another pipeline
00:08:08.660potentially in the cards as well going to the united states that felt like it was dead a decade
00:08:12.720ago um so yeah like i don't know i i'm sure some people are trying to like smooth this over and
00:08:20.300pretend as though it's totally okay that that carney is doing this but like you know some of
00:08:25.860the stuff that that we talk about like you know this is clearly like an authoritarian president
00:08:29.800in the united states we see him deploying troops on his own people um you know in cities across the
00:08:36.080country and it's kind of like at what point does uh you know our prime minister sucking up to a
00:08:41.480leader like that uh just become like completely unacceptable and to me you know especially when
00:08:46.700we talked about elbows up and we talked about you know kind of defending canada and all this kind of
00:08:50.340stuff um i feel like it's reached that point long ago and you know obviously that is going to have
00:08:57.120implications for the canadian economy if we do that but again i think this comes back to the
00:09:01.680point of about like what's most important you know the the economy our values uh you know what's the
00:09:06.440balance here um and i'm not sure the balance is exactly right yeah i'm i'm increasingly on the
00:09:13.000same page with that i mean i it's funny i remember uh during carney's first meeting with trump uh
00:09:19.380the use of the word transformative was something we all went nuts for uh because of the fact that
00:09:24.020it had that dual meaning. We were like, oh, that's so smart. But I feel like that works once.
00:09:28.720You know, you can't just use the same word again and again after Trump takes it well and everyone
00:09:34.120takes it the second. I feel like you got to maybe get a little more creative than that, particularly
00:09:37.320if your actions surrounding it seem to be repeatedly capitulating to Trump's demands.
00:09:43.300And that's sort of the context that we're dealing with. But that leads me to my other question that
00:09:47.880is the aspect of this that I personally struggle with sometimes in trying to make sure that I'm
00:09:54.000being fair while I'm criticizing Carney um and recognizing this authoritarian threat and the
00:10:00.860fact that this guy that they're dealing with Trump is such a I don't want to say unique because this
00:10:07.320archetype has existed like throughout history but in terms of the Canada-US relationship I don't
00:10:12.560think we've ever dealt with anyone quite this volatile and uh fascist um you know Trump labeled
00:10:18.960Antifa a terror group. And we already saw that one professor actually had to flee to Europe
00:10:26.600over the ensuing Antifa allegations, which came from Turning Point USA. We've also seen that
00:10:33.920Trump and his officials have said they're going to use the full power of the government to go
00:10:38.520after Antifa, which once again is an ideology of philosophy rather than an organization,
00:10:46.400which in effect allows them to just go after anyone who they deem to be part of this ideology,
00:10:54.240which is so loose, and sort of repress and crack down on them. So I guess my question in this
00:11:00.880context is, and it's such, it's a hard one, I don't think you and I would figure it out today. But
00:11:05.360do you think that we should be drawing a harder line with Trump? Like, what's the right kind of
00:11:11.300approach as um an economy that's so interdependent as a result of you know free trade deals over the
00:11:18.580decades um how do we deal with this without destroying our country oh yeah i'm not denying
00:11:26.820that it's it's a difficult kind of uh what would you say tight right tightrope walk to be to be on0.60
00:11:32.020right now um you know melanie jolly uh laid out kind of part of her plan for um she used three
00:11:41.460words to like talk about what she's doing with the canadian economy but i can't remember them off the
00:11:45.220top of my head but it's essentially like finding new markets you know defending the economy creating
00:11:48.820more kind of uh i don't know resilience uh innovation whatnot at home um so like they are
00:11:55.380working on things but obviously like reorienting economy takes a long time and when you're in this
00:12:00.260degree of geographic proximity to the united states then you know that that is not going to
00:12:04.980wholly go away um but i also think like it's hard to present canada as this like you know a kind of
00:12:12.660country that cares about uh you know international law and all these sorts of things while at the
00:12:18.500same time ignoring what the united states is doing um especially when you're often trying to present
00:12:24.260yourself you know in contrast to the united the united states right um but of course if you go
00:12:31.080harder on trump that also means that any kind of deal is going to get harder to to find and
00:12:35.820potentially tariffs increase as well um and so obviously that is kind of you know a game that
00:12:40.900you need to balance but um and you know with this government like i i really don't think we're going
00:12:46.640to see them push back on these things um anyway because we've already seen them uh you know kind
00:12:52.480of seek to move aside environmental regulations for projects that they that they pick out to do
00:12:58.340that. They've, of course, introduced the border bill that is very draconian, I know has had some
00:13:03.560some changes in the most recent introduction, but it's still, you know, not the kind of thing that
00:13:08.580I think we would otherwise usually accept. Yeah. And, you know, as you talk about, like,
00:13:14.980the war on Antifa that, you know, the US government and Donald Trump are launching,
00:13:20.340to me it's hard not to think back to like the war on terror right um and how that was not so much
00:13:26.620like a war on a country but a war on an ideology right uh you know they would say radical islam
00:13:32.120or whatever but you know it's a this kind of like jihadist um ideology and we have already seen
00:13:38.760aspects of that come home with you know the significant militarization of the u.s police
00:13:44.480forces because there was so much excess kind of military hardware and they needed somewhere to
00:13:49.060put it so they put it into police departments at home and we've seen you know kind of the crackdown
00:13:53.760on on on people's rights and stuff over the past number of years and so to a certain degree like
00:13:58.460obviously you say like you know it is this kind of like fascist government this increasingly
00:14:02.800authoritarian government but to me it's always like you know you see these things happen abroad
00:14:07.600right that the u.s does abroad and then eventually they work their way back to the core right um and
00:14:12.600and it feels like that is kind of part of what is happening at the moment where it's like these
00:14:17.000these tendencies that have been built into the u.s system for the for so long um around being
00:14:22.880deployed on its own people um in in a much uh in like a much more visible way i you know i think
00:14:30.520black people and certain minorities have faced this for a long time indigenous folks in the u.s
00:14:34.320um but you know now it's like political opponents yeah you're you're fair game
00:14:39.320Yeah, it's pretty terrifying. And I don't know, I also feel like there's more we could be doing. There's that expression that when the United States sneezes, Canada catches a cold. And I do also feel like as we are reckoning with how to handle this authoritarian, increasingly authoritarian government to the south of us, there's also a lot more we could be doing to safeguard ourselves against sort of catching that cold.
00:15:09.320that I feel like we're just not doing.
00:15:11.180We're just not recognizing the growing threat that exists
00:15:15.640in any type of institutional, systemic way.
00:15:20.180Like, I do think that we should be having real and honest conversations
00:15:24.520about this kind of language making its way into the House of Commons.
00:15:28.920You know, we just saw Michelle Rempel bring forward
00:15:31.000a bid to end birthright citizenship for temporary residents in Canada.
00:15:35.980And it's just, I feel like we need to make sure that we're being vigilant.
00:15:41.380And I sort of wish that even if it's just lip service, we had a bit more lip service going towards enforcing those norms.
00:15:49.340Because there's a lot of lip service going towards the opposite, which is destroying those norms.
00:15:56.520I don't know if you have any thoughts on that aspect of it, that sort of rhetorical game.
00:16:00.360other than michelle ramble garner is terrible and uh you know uh kind of like a stain on on
00:16:07.980parliament uh but so many of those conservatives are really um you know i i don't think it's
00:16:12.720wholly surprising obviously we've seen our conservative party in canada you know i've
00:16:16.340never been a conservative supporter but uh go even more and more to the right over the years
00:16:21.060and you know it feels like if stephen harper's conservative party kind of like uh you know
00:16:25.820kind of did the work of moving Canadian society slightly more to the right. It's like Pierre
00:16:31.620Polyev's conservatives are really picking up, you know, the baton and just running with it, right,
00:16:36.360to try to really institute this project that I think Stephen Harper always was interested in
00:16:41.620instituting, but didn't feel he could take the Canadian public to that degree, right. And now
00:16:47.520Polyev is trying to use very deceptive political framings in order to try to get there, not to
00:16:54.240mention, you know, kind of, you know, real challenges that exist within Canada for a lot
00:16:58.460of people at the moment. And it doesn't help that, you know, the Liberal Party is now a very openly
00:17:04.140right-wing party as well. For all the criticisms I had of Justin Trudeau, you know, Mark Carney is
00:17:10.780like an old progressive conservative, basically, to a certain degree. And it's like, there's no
00:17:16.980real even center, let alone a left, it feels like in Canadian politics at the moment.
00:17:21.340Yeah, I feel like that's really, I don't want to, like, take the responsibility away from the Conservatives who are choosing to do this. But it's fascinating seeing the way that it almost feels like the Liberals are, I guess, calling their bluff, to put it nicely, by their governing in this Conservative way, because Canadians wanted some kind of a change.
00:17:45.280And so they basically transformed themselves into the Conservative Party, it felt like, a sort of at least centre-right Conservative Party.
00:17:54.080And so as a result, I think the Conservative Party feels as though it has to go further and further right to distinguish itself from Kearney eating their lunch.
00:18:03.300They're obviously also doing some things like eating the NDP's lunch, going for workers and things like that.
00:18:07.980But it's, it's just unfortunate because it feels like in the, in the pursuit of political victory, we're not really paying attention to the ways in which we're shifting the Overton window of our politics in the process. So, and I also think parts of it like don't even work for Carney's political program as well. Like, you know, some of it is just like, okay, we're giving capital exactly what it wants. Right. And they're going to be thrilled with us and they're Carney's big buddies. So, you know, that's all fine.
00:18:36.840But it's like the immigration aspect to this to me is just like kind of shocking.
00:18:43.780Like it's really wild to me because, you know, I saw a report just recently that the Canadian population will probably like barely grow this year at all after like a number of years of significant growth.
00:18:57.700But it was immigration growth that was kind of propping up economic growth to a certain degree, right?
00:19:05.080they are spurring economic activity, they are buying things, all that kind of stuff.
00:19:10.400But Carney has really bought into this point that was kind of set up by the previous Trudeau
00:19:15.200government, but that the conservatives have really been pushing that we really need to rein in
00:19:20.140immigration of so many different forms. And I would argue that has meant that we have missed
00:19:26.120out on the opportunity to get more international students as they have been worried about going to
00:19:31.120the united states um potentially of getting some of like the academics and researchers that are
00:19:35.240looking to to flee the united states um but more than that it's like if population growth is close
00:19:40.640to zero which is just a wild thing like you know even in regular years you wouldn't have that um
00:19:46.400and the economy is like struggling anyway then you're virtually guaranteeing um like a recession
00:19:52.720to to come as a result of that or you know a much you know if you're if you're someone like carny
00:19:57.720who's focused on those aggregate numbers above everything else you know you want economy number
00:20:03.460to go up line go up all that kind of stuff it's like it really doesn't doesn't seem to fit um
00:20:09.800and and again like i think that it's blaming the easy target for a problem that is much more
00:20:16.460deeply rooted like i don't to me i really don't believe that the biggest problem in the housing
00:20:21.280crisis is immigrants it's like you know our developers and all that kind of stuff but we
00:20:26.060don't want to target them because it's easier to go after international students and stuff.
00:20:30.780Yeah, it's the financialization of the housing market that has increasingly treated housing
00:20:34.780like a commodity to be invested in and profited off of rather than, you know, the human right
00:20:39.640that it is. And so when immigrants arrive, that gives you an easy villain, I guess, for people1.00
00:20:45.880who already are afraid of difference. But it's just it's gross because you're you're attacking
00:20:51.300immigrants in the name of protecting capital and wealth which is just pathetic um yeah speaking of0.96
00:20:59.220uh people protecting capital and wealth a new profile came out about mark carney this week um0.94
00:21:06.740that was an interesting one uh from mclean's by steve marr um that photo as well is just like no
00:21:15.700yeah if for those of you who are uh going to be listening on audio when this is available later
00:21:21.060um mark harney's just sort of sitting i don't know actually paris do you want to take a crack
00:21:25.140at describing this how you see it yeah i would say you know he's like sitting very confidently
00:21:30.420in a chair like the way that the lighting done is done like you know kind of gives him like kind
00:21:35.460of like an ominous omen and then of course you know the towers of bay street i imagine it is
00:21:40.580are like in the background behind him yeah yeah it's very very wealthy and powerful uh kind of
00:21:47.460positioning um and in this piece we learn a lot about mark carney about the thing that really
00:21:54.260struck me right off the bat was the anecdote that mar included about karina gold um so basically it
00:22:02.100sounds like i i for those of you who followed the liberal leadership contest gold was sort of the
00:22:07.060more uh out of the lot the most progressive and she needled carney a few times um but it was never
00:22:15.140really anything out of the norm for politics she didn't go low i would say by any stretch of what
00:22:21.940we've seen in modern politics and when he won she reportedly asked if she could stop by and
00:22:29.300congratulate carney and carney said no and apparently uh that he told his team that he
00:22:37.620didn't ever want to see her again which is so wild it's so wild and um so the staff sent gold
00:22:46.100a non-committal answer because they didn't want to offend her by saying exactly what carney said i
00:22:50.980guess reportedly and apparently she showed up anyway and that led to a brief awkward meeting
00:22:58.660um so this leads maru to determine that carney has the skin like a peach so very thin-skinned
00:23:06.420is what he's getting out there i mean what was your reaction to what we learned in this profile
00:23:11.620even just that first anecdote um not at all surprised um because this like aligns with uh
00:23:20.340you know basically like other stories that we have heard about carney um you know this piece
00:23:25.780repeats the fact that he has kind of changed the dress code uh you know within the the pmo to make
00:23:31.780sure men are always wearing black shoes and you know they need to have like a certain degree of
00:23:36.260formal attire and be wearing ties and stuff like that because he wants it to be like the business
00:23:40.260world and because he's like an old school religious guy um you know and this is how he feels that that
00:23:45.460it should work of course there's also been reports that he makes them all right in british english
00:23:49.140instead of canadian english which is well that's bearing out to me it's in his press releases like
00:23:54.980he wrote that oh really oh yeah so i got people kind of dogged on me for pointing this out but
00:24:02.420it's just to me it's just odd at a time when we're really defending our sovereignty too
00:24:06.740um because what he did was he wrote uh there's one specific example when he was recognizing
00:24:12.660a palestinian state um and announcing that he wrote recognizes with an s and not a zed
00:24:18.580and canadian english does tend to we pick and choose between uh a lot of like american or
00:24:24.020British spellings but you know as someone who went to journalism school and had to learn the
00:24:28.500Canadian press style guide of how we choose to spell our words in Canada recognizes is one of
00:24:33.540those ones that we use as edit and so it's just it's just odd to prioritize foreign spelling
00:24:39.220whether it be American or British over what has traditionally been Canadian I just I find that
00:24:45.220odd one person called Mark Carney um a t-boo in response to that like a wee-boo which is someone
00:24:52.340who's very uh overly passionate about japanese culture um but a tibu which is like the british
00:24:58.340version i guess i thought that was very funny but uh yeah so it's anyway sorry i'll let you continue
00:25:05.300with that your reaction to the piece but the british spelling thing is just it's just an odd
00:25:09.940tidbit it's obviously not worth worse than um some things we've seen from polyev but like it's still
00:25:16.420something odd that i think is worth highlighting yeah but i i just think it suggests like his kind
00:25:21.460of infatuation with with britain and stuff right it's why at the first opportunity he wanted the
00:25:25.620king to come over because you know that's an institution that he that he cherishes in a way
00:25:30.020that i would argue a lot of canadians uh do not right um you know but unlike the karina gould
00:25:35.940point you know karina gould does not hold any kind of special place in you know my kind of uh
00:25:42.340you know i don't i don't i don't ascribe her much importance you know to me karina gould
00:25:46.740is the person who was brought in by Justin Trudeau to kind of strangle proportional representation
00:25:53.260in its crib, even though she, you know, did some of her academic studies on why we should have
00:25:58.540proportional representation. So yeah, I, you know, I don't see her particularly positively, but
00:26:04.060even still, you know, she did represent a more progressive vision in the leadership race. And
00:26:10.300I don't think anyone who really watched that leadership race could say it was very contentious.
00:26:14.720They were all being very friendly with one another and taking little jabs here and there just to like make it appear as though there were some disagreements.
00:26:22.420But, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that that Carney is, you know, a very thin skinned man, someone who does not like to be criticized and who likes to exert his power above everybody else.
00:26:35.880because we see that time and again and the indications that we've received from his office
00:26:41.400and from places he's worked previously from people who have worked for him previously
00:26:45.180suggests that you know he is not a great person to to to work for there was an anecdote in the
00:26:52.360in the piece as well that he was in the house one day like kind of reviewing his answers before
00:26:59.700question period and Melanie Jolie came up to to speak to him about something and he didn't even
00:27:05.260like look up at her he just like waved her off like yeah so uh this is the kind of guy who we
00:27:12.380have as prime minister yeah i'm gonna be honest and this is the thing that makes this worth talking
00:27:18.260about really beyond many other like you know it's funny a little bit to rag on the infatuation with
00:27:25.320british culture but the aspect of it that i genuinely think is concerning and is bearing
00:27:30.160out slightly in the choices he's making as a prime minister is the fact that it always seems1.00
00:27:36.080to be women. It's the Melanie Jolie story you just said, the Karina Gould story in this situation.0.96
00:27:43.680We've got the way that he reacted to female journalists during the campaign repeatedly.
00:27:50.560He tended to lose his temper more quickly with female journalists and sound frustrated.
00:27:55.780I highlighted this during the campaign.
00:28:24.500And reportedly it has. You know, there was rumors when he first came into office that it was a boys club. That's what I heard from people who were, you know, senior liberal sources. And I wasn't the only one hearing that. I saw Susan Delacour also post this. So like, and Althea Raj also said this. So all of these, you know, people who are watching, particularly women who are avid watchers of Canadian politics, were highlighting this issue.
00:28:49.740And now look at wage. Look at these. That's the women and gender equality, this department just getting sliced down, made into a minister of state. And, you know, I may be a little incorrect there, but just there's major cuts that people are worried about coming to wage.
00:29:08.980And yeah, it's just those are the ways in which these sort of seemingly silly or gossipy stories bear out in a very real way in the kinds of policy impacts and governance impacts and decision making at the highest level of our country that make them worth paying attention to.
00:29:28.240yeah okay we have another another target here another another gentleman liberal gentleman
00:29:36.700we're going to talk about uh my old boss your favorite okay yeah i was like i was like wait
00:29:43.340who yeah all right yeah i hate this guy man evan solomon everyone so uh full disclosure i was his
00:29:50.140producer on ctv power play for a while so i worked with him like every day for a not insignificant
00:29:55.320amount of time, heard him pluck his acoustic guitar during meetings from time to time.
00:30:01.940But yeah, sell any high valued art to anybody?
00:30:06.440Oh, I mean, never, never tried to me. But then again, there's no way I could afford it on a CTV
00:30:12.900salary. But, you know, your bread and butter is tech criticism. And despite rumors that you're
00:30:20.260funded by Peter Thiel, which I'm just kidding. Sorry, guys, it's a bit of an inside joke.
00:30:25.260But I haven't been following the AI file as closely as you. So I would love to hear from
00:30:31.360you. Like, how is my old boss doing here? Terribly, but exactly as the industry would
00:30:37.600want him to be to be doing, you know, you know, he set up this this kind of new, what do you call
00:30:44.440it panel or you know kind of these these kind of working groups recently um that are very like
00:30:51.540industry dominated in order to kind of shape and guide um you know the uh the government's ai
00:30:57.620policies um and then he's finally started doing some more interviews recently which are again
00:31:03.200not uh very hopeful in what it sounds like you know the the department is doing of course it's
00:31:09.660already scrapped the ai rules that were being worked on under justin trudeau and in his government
00:31:14.520um and you know if you look at this this interview that he did recently on cbc power and politics he
00:31:20.340is basically being asked by david cochran the the the host there um you know what the the
00:31:26.660government strategy is and whether whether it has any concerns about certain you know uh rollout of
00:31:32.720ai in in different sectors and you know solomon is like yeah we're we're definitely concerned about
00:31:39.060what this means for privacy and for deep fakes which you know are are real things that that we
00:31:44.980should be concerned about but to me it feels like talking about privacy and deep fakes and kind of
00:31:50.820stopping there feels like maybe you could have gotten away with that in 2023 right um you know
00:31:58.900when generative ai was was still pretty new on the scene and we hadn't really seen the wider
00:32:05.300implications of the rollout of this technology and how it was going to be used but now it's like
00:32:11.860we have these these like we have a ton of reporting and investigation into the environmental impacts
00:32:17.980of these major data centers that are being built out in order to power generative ai we see the
00:32:22.980impacts on workers in certain aspects of of you know of society whether that is you know i think
00:32:31.060there are real concerns about what it's going to mean for the public sector as it's rolled out
00:32:34.020there but in particular like creative communities and things like that where we've actually seen a
00:32:38.140tangible impact so far um you know if you're someone who's concerned about productivity and
00:32:43.340economic growth there's a growing number of reports that suggest that these tools are really
00:32:47.660not contributing um to productivity growth is not actually making things easier for workers
00:32:53.460um you know so it's not actually helping like the bottom line of these companies so
00:32:58.080why would you spend all this money on a very costly tool to roll it out um and then you know
00:33:03.120paired with that are these growing stories we hear about you know this this notion of um ai
00:33:08.600psychosis or like you know the kind of mental health breaks that some people are having um
00:33:13.080once they become really dependent on these chat bots and and tools and things like that and so
00:33:19.080it's like okay yeah ai or privacy and deep fakes sure should be discussed but like if that is the
00:33:26.140scope of what you're looking at for the potential harms of these technologies um and whether it
00:33:31.180be rolled out like i think you're really missing the the bigger picture here um and of course he
00:33:37.180would want to miss the bigger picture because he is trying to do what basically what the industry
00:33:41.660wants him to do which is to promote the rollout of these technologies so you know i i think it's
00:33:46.700terrible what's going on here but i'm not really surprised yeah it's it's just sort of another um
00:33:54.460concerning action related to workers um that we're seeing from this government and you know
00:34:00.620you know, another big one is what's going on with Canada Post right now. I don't want to move on too
00:34:05.960fast if you had anything else you wanted to say about the AI issue, but I felt like you covered
00:34:11.380it pretty well. I feel like that's like the key developments recently, you know?
00:34:17.760Yeah, yeah. Just a perfect Paris roundup. But yeah, so the, you know, the Canada Post
00:34:25.440strike just last night, actually. They announced that they are scaling back the strike action
00:34:31.660slightly. They are going to switch to rotating strikes as of Saturday, which will start some
00:34:38.740mail and parcels moving, but they're going to continue fighting for a better agreement.
00:34:43.800But that action initially started around the time that Joel Lightbound, the government0.79
00:34:51.080transformation minister which i find to be a very stupid title yeah um said that the crown corporation
00:34:58.500is effectively insolvent um which is fascinating i mean you never hear that said about things like0.96
00:35:05.140the police but uh you know yeah um and has the government opened the door to allowing canada
00:35:14.140Post to make major changes that actually Trudeau's Liberals campaigned against in 2015 when
00:35:22.420including Joel Lightbound himself. Yeah, when when Harper wanted to do stuff like end door to door
00:35:30.560mail delivery, which now the Canadian government is telling Canada Post that they are allowed to do
00:35:36.960if they so wish. That's my understanding of the situation. And what you hear again and
00:35:43.960again, in the media is about how, you know, it's losing tons of money, Canada Post, but
00:35:49.900are services supposed to be, you know, profitable? Like, do we, are we talking about how much the
00:35:57.460police profit every year? I just, yeah, I guess what I wanted to ask you is like, what do you
00:36:04.020think of this current labor action, especially in the context of the others that we've seen?
00:36:09.780and what kind of ramifications will its outcomes have for not just Canada Post, but labor in Canada
00:36:17.940more broadly? Yeah. Can you imagine if the government was like, you know, the K to 12
00:36:24.040schools aren't really making money, so we should probably like wind them down, right? Or,
00:36:28.700you know, defund them because this doesn't make any sense. It's ridiculous. And, you know,0.99
00:36:35.140there's so much I can say on this, but I actually want to go back to what you were saying about the
00:36:39.040british aspect of mark carney like kind of loving britain right um in the uk they privatized the
00:36:45.160royal mail uh you know um i believe it was a little less than a decade ago something like that
00:36:50.460um it's been a shambles uh doing that but of course the uk is a much smaller country as well
00:36:56.280right you know canada is a massive country a delivery service is very important especially
00:37:00.460for all those rural and remote communities and and whatnot um and so to me part of me also looks
00:37:07.060at this and is like carney loves britain britain privatized its post office maybe he's like yeah
00:37:14.560britain did it we can do it too doesn't really matter uh but we can't just like do it overnight
00:37:18.680we need to you know do it in in stages right or else people will be really pissed about it
00:37:23.040um and you know a side note it was actually a woman from newfoundland who under oversaw
00:37:28.780the privatization of the royal mail and she was previously the head of canada post under stephen
00:37:34.980harper um and we have reporting that she went to harper and pushed for him to privatize canada post0.95
00:37:41.260and he actually basically told her to fuck off um so you know stephen harper did one thing well i0.87
00:37:47.580guess um so basically basically what i would say is um i think there are so many terrible things0.99
00:37:56.080about this right you know the the key point that canada post is a public service it's ridiculous
00:38:00.380that it should be having to make money in this way, that the government should be expecting this
00:38:05.860to happen. You know, the changes that Lightbound announced effectively mean that Canada Post can
00:38:13.120close a bunch of post offices. And one of the key things that I feel like hasn't been getting the
00:38:17.560attention that it possibly deserves is that he also kind of reduced the delivery timelines or
00:38:26.200or lengthen them. So it means that for a number of things that Canada Post used to send by air,
00:38:32.100so it would have to arrive in a certain amount of time, can now be sent by ground. So it will
00:38:36.460take a lot longer for those things to actually reach, you know, to reach the receiver, you know,
00:38:42.940the person who's receiving it. And that, you know, reduces the quality of the service,
00:38:47.600the dependability of the service, because now it's going to take longer to receive a piece of
00:38:51.660mail or a package or something like that, depending on which form of postage that you choose.
00:38:55.760So again, it's like degrading the service standards of Canada Post. Now, on the labor point, effectively what we see here is Canada Post management and the workers have been basically trying to find a collective agreement for quite some time now.
00:39:11.600Of course, they were on strike at the end of last year.
00:39:14.420We can remember that, and the government forced them back to work.
00:39:17.300They have been trying to negotiate a new collective agreement, but management has been very resistant to giving in to any of the terms of the union, and they have not really faced much pressure to have to do that.
00:39:29.060So the government stepping in and announcing these changes at a time when they're still negotiating a collective agreement means that the workers effectively have no leverage anymore.
00:39:38.540because the government is clearly on the side of management, is open about it,
00:39:43.440is allowing management to undertake the changes that it wants to do.
00:39:46.460And we have seen this in the negotiation that occurred since Joel Lightbaum's announcements
00:39:52.700where the management was supposed to present an offer to the union,
00:39:59.800I believe it was two Fridays ago, and they didn't do that and they delayed on it.
00:40:04.320And then when they did finally present an offer, it effectively made no changes. And I believe even rolled back some things that it had offered previously. And so the union was like, we can't accept this. But also, they're clearly not negotiating in good faith, because they know that the government is on their side, that the government has adopted their narrative of what the problem with Canada Post is, and is making changes that, you know, kind of, kind of go from there.
00:40:32.500Because the changes that the government announced are based on what is called the Kaplan Report put together by this guy, William Kaplan, which is, again, built on the foundations of the story that Canada Post management is telling about the problems with Canada Post that seeks to reduce delivery standards, close post offices, make more workers like kind of part time and contract.
00:40:53.780this is their their goal right and obviously something that the union is trying to stop
00:40:58.020the union obviously has a different story for the problem with canada post right now
00:41:04.480but you will never see that reflected in media coverage in any of the narrative about canada
00:41:11.080post because everyone seems to have given into this narrative that's coming from management
00:41:14.800because they have been more effective at communicating it after light bounce announcement
00:41:18.860I followed a lot of the media on the announcements that Canada Post was making and effectively what
00:41:24.460we saw there was the only kind of program that I saw even mentioned the narrative that the union
00:41:30.600puts out the explanation that the union puts out for the problems Canada Post is facing and where
00:41:35.200the deficit comes from which they say comes much more out of capital spending that Canada Post has
00:41:42.440been doing rather than operational spending was CBC's about that and it was you know only
00:41:48.480mentioned in kind of like the second half of the program and then still ended by kind of reaffirming
00:41:53.180management's narrative you know um so i know those are like a lot of details but effectively
00:41:59.100what we're seeing is the destruction of this key public service that so many canadians depend on
00:42:06.360you know that has this unique infrastructure of having these offices in so many communities
00:42:13.520around the country that could be used so effectively to serve Canadians in so many
00:42:19.260different ways, to improve the services that are delivered to the public and especially to those
00:42:24.980people who could most need them, whether that's postal banking, checking in on seniors, all these
00:42:30.580different things that Canada Post workers could do in the community to improve communities, to make
00:42:35.400people's lives better. And it's especially egregious to me that it comes at a time when
00:42:41.620Mark Carney can't shut up about uh projects in the national interest and nation building projects
00:42:46.740it's like that's what Canada Post is Canada Post built this nation you know we can have all our
00:42:51.480criticisms of Canada that we want to have but like Canada Post is an essential institution and we're
00:42:57.220basically seeing them uh kill it uh through death by a thousand cuts and I I think I have so many
00:43:03.300criticisms of the Carney government um but I feel like this is the thing that really like just broke
00:43:09.500me um and was the thing where it was like these people are irredeemable in my eyes because i care
00:43:15.580so much about canada post yeah you guys should have seen the texts i got from paris when this
00:43:20.560news came out yeah i was so bad yeah but it is it's it's a really um it's it feels like a
00:43:29.560uh really major point not only for canadian identity but also the um just labor rights in
00:43:39.060Canada, I mean, it feels like a real flashpoint and a real like emblematic moment. And I don't
00:43:45.740know, I, it's very upsetting and very frustrating to see the direction that we're headed in,
00:43:52.020especially when it feels like there aren't a lot of other, there's not really strong progressive
00:43:57.280options in our government right now. You know, we've got about 10 minutes left. So I did want
00:44:04.400to leave some time if you guys had any questions that you wanted to um put in the super chats or
00:44:10.760throw our way um but you know maybe just quickly while there we give them a minute to come up with
00:44:18.460those did you want to tell people where they can keep up with your work paris first i don't i don't
00:44:24.180work actually um uh no i uh i make a podcast called tech won't save us um i generally have
00:44:33.100newsletter called disconnect but because i'm writing a book it's been a bit uh slow lately
00:44:37.940admittedly um you know and i'm on a lot of social media platforms but the one i post on more
00:44:44.000regularly is is blue sky um we'll see maybe i'll do some more video stuff at some point but uh
00:44:49.960i'm an old school text boy so while we wait to see if any other questions come in the other thing i
00:44:56.520wanted to give us a chance to do if they didn't immediately flow in was talk a little bit about
00:45:01.540NDP leadership. Because, you know, speaking of potential progressive options in the country,
00:45:09.080I mean, the race is starting to take shape. This is, I threw up everyone's faces for those of you0.89
00:45:16.040who are watching on video, but there's Abby Lewis, Rob Ashton, Heather McPherson,
00:45:22.800Tenille Johnston, and those are all of the confirmed candidates. And then I did put a
00:45:27.640little tiny Eve angler because he's very vocal but he's not it sounds like he hasn't even applied
00:45:32.660yet so um that's apparently part of his strategy but yeah this is uh this is sort of what we're
00:45:40.480looking at right now Paris what are your thoughts on this race as it's taking shape um I I actually
00:45:46.200didn't know the the second woman to join uh I've also been out of the loop for the past yeah that
00:45:50.600was just yesterday I believe so yeah she's the first indigenous uh woman to ever run for the NDP
00:45:55.720and i believe she's a social worker okay cool awesome i'll have to learn more about her candidate
00:46:00.760candidacy so i can't i can't comment on her um because i'm just not familiar um i would say
00:46:06.600uh you know mcpherson joining is not surprising um you know and i think that she's going to kind
00:46:12.200of try to build on the credibility that she built from being the foreign affairs critic
00:46:16.600um or or you know whatever whatever that title is you know basically the work that she's been
00:46:21.000doing on Palestine in particular over the past year or so. So I don't think that's particularly
00:46:26.000surprising. You know, obviously, Avi Lewis obviously came out of the gate with a lot of
00:46:31.180energy, you know, has a lot of, you know, kind of work behind him, I guess, you know,
00:46:36.260has been preparing for this for quite some time. He's obviously run a few times to become
00:46:42.480an NDP MP and has lost because I would argue of his choice of writing. And in an interview that
00:46:49.320he did with power and politics he essentially suggested that like if he's elected leader he'll
00:46:53.800just find a different riding where he knows he's going to win this time instead of being in the one
00:46:57.460he'd prefer to win in that you know he knows the liberals are going to get um so yeah so i think i
00:47:02.900think we'll see um i actually find the the labor guy what's his name rob something i think rob
00:47:08.040ashton yeah yeah rob ashton i find him really compelling i'm like uh curious to learn more
00:47:13.540about his candidacy um like i don't know i i feel like most people didn't see him coming and maybe
00:47:19.540he could be like kind of like a dark horse candidate in a sense um so yeah we'll we'll0.96
00:47:25.700we'll see how it goes eve engler fuck fuck eve engler yeah yeah i feel like he's not a very0.99
00:47:33.940serious candidate um but no anyway he's using it for clout let's be real i got uh i dealt with some0.99
00:47:40.980real heavy reply guys it's mostly just eve himself spamming my replies when i shared the story about
00:47:47.140his candidacy so um so we do have one super chat but it's more of just a comment uh so i'll throw
00:47:53.780it up but it just says uh conservative carney is a trojan horse awful um i think that reflects how
00:47:59.940a lot of folks feel right now so thank you so much for the super chat um let's see if there's any uh
00:48:06.660other questions that we can take um how are you feeling about the ndp years though rachel oh me
00:48:14.100so i'm still in wait and see mode i i am excited i'm i'm excited to see uh you know that it's not
00:48:21.220just heather mcpherson taking center stage i didn't love her comments about the ndp uh she
00:48:27.220made a comment that leah gazan actually came out and spoke against uh about their not being not
00:48:32.420needing to be purity tests for the NDP I just think that that's kind of unnecessary particularly
00:48:37.140in this political climate because I think that it's not so much that people are subject to
00:48:41.220purity tests as it is that attempts to be inclusive get trotted out by you know bad
00:48:48.340faith social media accounts and subject you to bad faith attacks so if you allow those attacks
00:48:53.700to mitigate your efforts to be inclusive that's just cowardice instead of and it's not leadership
00:49:00.980so i i wasn't a big fan of that uh which is too bad because i i have otherwise i really liked
00:49:06.260heather's stuff on palestine um abby lewis i liked what i saw in his uh power and politics interview
00:49:12.820uh he was saying a lot of the right things about billionaires um rob ashton i don't know if you
00:49:18.260saw that viral video of him just uh railing like he's just like a classic union guy and i think we
00:49:25.700really needed to see that in this race and i i really enjoyed his energies like uh me too
00:49:32.740like uh carl marx mixed with grandpa i don't know it was good people might be down for that you
00:49:39.700know like yeah yeah move these like slick talkers to the side you know these deceptive guys who are
00:49:46.340on the one hand selling us elbows up and giving us elbows down and on the other hand you know selling
00:49:51.060us like this this kind of lower housing prices and better deal for workers that is actually totally
00:49:56.420you know in the bag of capital and like i don't know a kind of brash union guy could could really
00:50:02.260uh you know i'd love to see him in the house of commons i hope he runs even if he doesn't get
00:50:07.220leadership um yeah but you know he's obviously very busy with his union work so i don't know
00:50:11.940we'll see and then uh yeah to neil i've actually heard from uh some folks sort of uh i i've heard
00:50:19.460some excitement from more sort of younger uh uh very progressive ndp-ers that they're they're just
00:50:25.060excited first of all to have someone who isn't white running because otherwise it's like a pretty
00:50:29.380pasty slate um and uh yeah so and also just to deal i think is is fairly progressive and so i'm
00:50:35.940excited to hear more from her i haven't heard a ton from her yet um and i think i covered everyone
00:50:42.100there um except for eve but again he hasn't been approved yet so you know speaking of like young
00:50:48.180progressive and stuff did you see that the the bc greens have a new leader and i believe she's 24
00:50:55.060years old um i'm pretty like yeah emily lowen right yeah yeah exactly yeah i actually haven't
00:51:00.980had a chance to really look into her but i keep getting people tagging me and stuff about her so
00:51:05.220i need to take some time to uh get acquainted because i love seeing you know young women get
00:51:10.740into politics particularly at this time when we're seeing so much regression um maybe in so much of
00:51:15.620of our society you know maybe yeah maybe maybe i should reach out let me know if you guys would
00:51:20.260like that um and we got two more uh super chats here that i'll just quickly bring up and we can
00:51:26.340react to you and then uh we'll probably wrap it up so uh cristiano terrien says we love you both
00:51:33.220and your work thank you for being there for us thank you for being here for us we really appreciate
00:51:37.940it and and thanks for the support um and then crotchy once again some of your usernames that
00:51:44.980that you're making me read into the podcast um says i've had it podcast calls it credibility
00:51:51.220testing and i think that's in reference to what we were just discussing about purity tests
00:51:55.000um yeah i like that and like you did in one of your tiktoks uh don davies has been saying stuff
00:52:00.820like that as well which is like disappointing yeah i just think it's the wrong tack i mean
00:52:06.080not everyone in our politics has to move more to the right it's you don't have to do it
00:52:11.360Exactly. It's like, I feel like there's some of those NDPers who are like, this is really the opportunity to present a progressive alternative, right? You know, we have the extreme right conservative party and the right wing liberal party. And it's like, okay, let's offer something really different. And then there's this other wing of the NDP that's like, oh, look, they vacated the like Trudeau version of the liberal party.
00:52:35.120we can move even more in that direction and try to present ourselves as like the the real centrists
00:52:41.680this time and it's like come on guys i know it's just exhausting the the people yearn for a real
00:52:48.160progressive option elizabeth may yeah yeah you know i mean she's still here so yeah
00:52:57.600yeah um all right well paris thank you so much for your time it was an absolute pleasure as
00:53:07.000always i could talk to you for another like four hours so i'm gonna cut myself off um my screen
00:53:12.600just died but you're you're still here so um yeah your computer decided to cut you off i don't know
00:53:20.100what just happened there it's like you're out of time let paris leave okay great well thank you so
00:53:25.820much Paris thank you all for being here and uh yeah I'll see you guys next time thanks Paris